data knows best

Via the Browser comes a clever and creepy piece by writer Sarah Wilson on the potential—nay, inevitably paternalistic nature of the internet of things, wherein one’s smart appliances, imbued with a life and will of their own collaborate to ensure that their human masters are given exactly what they need and to remain ever vigilant. I wouldn’t qualify the scenario as a satirical one since we are all lurching—or being dragged in that direction anyway, towards a silent intrusiveness and helpless against this obliging conspiracy.  I wonder if we might want to grow more dispossessed with this notion of hinging everything together.  What do you think?  Are we already too far gone to have a choice in the matter?